Drones Help with Precision Farming
In seconds, it is above the terrain and has already filmed several hectares of pineapple fields and returns to land in the middle of a small compact crowd. The scene is from early October 2016 in a suburb of Accra, Ghana, an unprecedented development in farming employed by Joshua Ayinbora, a young enthusiastic farmer.
The images from the flight will serve to orient him on the action to take on the ground; check the irrigation, or find anomalies related to sanitary treatment differences. "Understanding my pineapple is deciding if I want to achieve my goals of growth", he says. "Precision in agriculture is essential today to minimize risks and maximize returns."
Drones flying across agricultural fields can observe through a specific sensor, generate more accurate pictures than satellite images, and raise a higher amount of data.
It can help in the detection of weeds and diseases on crops in remote areas, finding damage disaster, and even in estimating the amount of fertilizer required for the farmland. Though the drones are being increasingly used for crop management in Europe and the United States (in France, the market leader Airinov provides services to about 8000 farmers), they are yet to take a hold in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Andrew Turner